Tennis isn’t generally considered a “team sport,” but Jaxon Yslava begs to differ.
For Yslava, a junior and the top singles player on the Patagonia High School boys team, the “team” aspect makes it all the more enjoyable.
“Without Jaxon, we wouldn’t even have a team,” Patagonia coach David Clovesko-Wharton said. “He recruited most of the team. He’s a natural leader.”
Leadership seems to be central to Yslava’s makeup. He’s the student body president and has been involved in student government since his freshman year while also playing on the basketball and soccer teams.
“I like being busy, otherwise you just get bored,” Yslava said. “I think it’s cool to be involved. We need as much school spirit as we can. I don’t know why, but people just don’t want to get involved in things.”
Yslava’s involvement as recruiter, cheerleader and inspirational force for the Lobos’ tennis team is a pay-it-forward example. He was encouraged to give tennis a try two years ago by senior Nick Dekhtyar.
“My friend Nick told me to come out and play tennis with him: ‘Hey, man, I want you to come play and have some fun.’ And I really did have fun. Even though I had never played tennis before.”
Yslava used the same approach with his current classmates. “I tried everybody I know,” he said. “Come play tennis with me, it’s really fun. I think I did convince at least two of them to come out.”
Given that there were a total of six players out for tennis – Yslava, Skylar Sanchez, Louis Reyes and Alex Ruskowitz on the boys team; Isela Cervantes and Meghan Aguilar on the girls – attracting two recruits is no small accomplishment. With a reported enrollment of 81 students, Patagonia is the smallest high school in Arizona to field a tennis team. (Duncan is next with 123 students.)
With so few numbers, Clovesko-Wharton emphasizes participation and improvement as measures of the team’s success. And Yslava stacks up well on those accounts.
He finished the season particularly strong, winning the consolation championship at the six-team small-school tournament hosted by The Gregory School at Tucson Racquet Club on April 12, and then winning his singles match against his opponent from Gregory in a dual-match on April 15.
“He played four Gregory players, lost the first one, then won the next three,” Clovesko-Wharton said. “He was ultra-consistent, ultra-steady, didn’t use a lot of his giant serves, just won three straight in a dominating fashion. He was focused and standing tall from the beginning to the end. This is the best I’ve seen him play.”
Yslava rolled his ankle toward the end of the basketball season and struggled at the start of the tennis season before finding his form.
“I like basketball and tennis equally,” he said. “I just wish we had a little more of a gap between seasons. I got off to a pretty slow start, but I think I was at my peak by the end of the season.”
Not bad for someone who had never played competitive tennis three years earlier. “My whole freshman year I was just learning to play, not even hitting the ball over the net,” he said. “A lot of credit goes to my coach. He sat with me, spent a lot of time and taught me the techniques.”
With the season now over, Yslava’s next focus is on a trip to the nation’s capital on June 4 with a select group of classmates as part of the Civics Matters Arizona program, a civic engagement initiative in which students from across the state participate in an essay contest and are selected for an all-expenses paid trip to Washington, D.C.
Yslava also participated in the program a year ago. “I do like to learn about what’s going on with our government,” he said. “There were about 250 kids or so, we got to see a lot of the historic buildings, learn how to be a part of democracy. ”
His favorite part?
“There was a boat ride, we got to eat dinner on the boat, cruise around the Potomac, listen to music, eat, get to know each other. I really enjoyed that.”